


Much Alike

by twistedchick



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M, None - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 07:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim asks questions; Blair draws conclusions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Much Alike

## Much Alike

by Kit Mason

Author's website:  <http://www.twistedchick.org/original/>

Not my characters, except for Cory and company.

This story is slightly rewritten from the version that  
appeared in Sentry Duty 5.

* * *

Much Alike,  
by Kit Mason 

"From a certain point of view, initiations are much alike." Mircea Eliade 

I'm back to being an observer again. 

This time I'm behind the one-way glass, watching Jim with a suspect in the interrogation room: the box with the all-seeing blind eye on one wall, not to mention the occasional video cameras in the corners. 

It's pure observation this time. I'm just watching what's happening, making notes to myself, making notes for myself on the ritual I'm observing. Cops have far more rituals than you'd expect, some of which they call procedure, some of which are barely acknowledged as part of the formalized methodology of seeking the truth. But that's what they are: rituals to placate the Truth Deity, petitioning for tickets on the clue bus to take them to the higher knowledge. 

* * *

"You know, Mr. Satterlee, I'm not in a hurry at all. Why don't you start at the beginning again and tell me where you were all day last Saturday?" 

Jim's calm, sitting on his side of the table, his hands open in front of him, just a simple guy asking a simple question. 

If he ever decides to be an actor, instead of a cop, he'll be pretty good at it. 

The suspect's not impressed. He's young, tough and cocky even after an hour of questioning. "I was around, man. Told you that already." 

"I'd like to hear it again, please, Mr. Satterlee." 

Jim's eyes are the only part of him that's not calm and cool. They're pale blue-gray, measuring the man across the table, analyzing him, sorting his reactions into categories and comparing them with the reactions of innumerable other people who've sat in that same chair. 

Each time it's the same. 

Each time it's different, never to be repeated. 

* * *

All knowledge is incomplete here. If you find out who, what, when and where, you'd better be satisfied with that, because the odds are against you ever finding out all of why. That doesn't even come out in a courtroom, not in its true depths. Only the approximate value of 'why' is ever seen; the rest lies so far below the surface that it makes an iceberg look obvious. 

I started to make notes an hour ago, when Jim went in. Simon was here and left and came back again, shaking his head, and Brown sat with me for a while as well. Rafe is doing research, tracking down the other witnesses and possible suspects that we know are involved, though we don't know to what degree. None of them take notes the way I do, in a kind of speedwriting I worked out as an undergrad faced with profs who talked way too fast. I write down impressions of the suspect's reactions as well as notes on his answers. It's not official evidence, though it can be called into the record at a judge's discretion; it's just something I do to help sort out observations. 

Everyone reacts to stress in different ways, even when it's someone else under stress. Simon paces. Brown chews on his pens. Rafe drums his fingers on the desk without realizing he does it; it took more than a week for Jim to learn how to ignore that when Rafe first arrived. Jim grinds his teeth. I make notes, and think of things I learned as an anthropologist, other ways of examining a situation, sifting data to sniff out truth from hypothesis. 

* * *

"You went down to the corner grocery. What did you get there?" 

"Bottle of milk, loaf of bread. Can of tuna." 

"Was that all?" 

"Yeah." 

* * *

Right now, half the notes are on the ritual and half on the suspect. I'm wondering if Mircea Eliade ever was in this position, watching a ritualized interrogation, and what he thought of it. 

Eliade was a lot like Burton, only he wandered all over India, Siberia and elsewhere in search of knowledge about religious belief and practice. His books, though a little dated in places, are standard texts now; the part that's sticking in my mind is the section on the themes of initiations. 

That's what I'm watching here, an initiation, whether the participants realize it or not. 

I should know; I've been through a few by now and so has Jim. I don't think he realized it at the time, but the whole Peruvian experience had all the hallmarks of a full ritual initiation into another life. It wasn't an accident that things happened the way they did. The purpose of ritual is as a transition from one life to another, to make you ready to face new responsibilities, and to give you tools to work with because once you've gone through the ritual, it's a new life out there. You can't go back to the way you were before. 

It would be easy to check off all the points on ritual initiation for when I drowned. No problem there. But the latest initiation, going from being an ABD grad student to a detective, had them all as well. I didn't realize that until now, as I sit watching Jim work patiently at Cory Satterlee, the youngest member of a group of young street toughs that were seen leaving a small corner grocery after a shoot-out that killed the store owner and his wife. 

* * *

"Milk, bread, tuna. No mayonnaise? Did you pick up a cup of coffee? It was pretty cold last Saturday." 

"No mayo." 

"Why not?" 

"I hate the stuff, man." 

"Okay. Hold the mayo. What about the coffee? Did you get a cup of take-out coffee?" 

Satterlee slams his hand on the table. "Shit, man, what is this? You haul me in here off the street and keep me here all this time to ask what I eat for breakfast?" 

"Is that what it was for? Why were you eating breakfast at 1 p.m., Mr. Satterlee?" 

* * *

You don't necessarily volunteer for an initiation. Sometimes you choose it. More often, it chooses you, and you have no say at all. 

Cory Satterlee isn't in there because he wants to be, just as Jim didn't choose to be in Peru. Cory was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it remains to be seen whether he was involved in wrongdoing as well. All we know now is that he was there with two other men, going into the mom-and-pop store, and when they was gone two people were dead. 

Jim went to Peru under orders, with a job to do and people to supervise; the chopper crash wasn't his idea or his fault. The decisive factor wasn't his doing, either -- it was that he lived through the experience. Once that happened, once that switch on the infinite timelines was flipped, the rest followed. Oh, he could have chosen to stay in Peru; the Chopec would have been glad for him to stay, but that too would have been impossible once the Army arrived. 

I had more choice, at first. I chose anthropology, Sentinel studies, and I jumped at having my own Sentinel to study. I chose to write my dissertation on Sentinels instead of on the interactions of police. I chose not to tell Naomi what I was doing until it was too late. But when the hand of infinity rolled the dice and set Naomi in motion, what little choice I had was pared away to one alternative. 

Life-changing events. Threshold events. Gateways on the borderlands between an old life and a new one. 

* * *

"I was up late. My sister came over with her boyfriend and we got to talking." 

Jim nods. "So you stayed up late and slept in. Makes sense." 

"Yeah, you know how family is, man." 

"Oh, yes. I know about family." Jim gets up and starts to walk around, one arm folded across his chest and supporting the other elbow. His free hand strokes his cheek a few times. 

I know Jim well enough to know what family he's thinking about -- himself and me, on lazy mornings when we have the day off. Waking each other up slowly with lips and hands on skin, touching and kissing, until we're so awake and together with each other that it can't get any better. Taking a shower afterward, fooling around a little more, having a leisurely breakfast, hanging out and doing things together. That's the reality; what he's projecting, of course, may come across as anything he wants to the man he's questioning, but that's part of the job, getting inside the suspect's guard with any little bit of information that will make him think you're similar in some way. 

He's pacing, slowly, thinking through what the kid is saying. "Was the milk for morning coffee or for your sister's baby?" 

"For the baby." Satterlee freezes, as if he's given away something important. Jim pretends not to notice. 

* * *

You can't phone in an initiation. You have to be there for it. They're trials by fire, by water, by what the Russian Orthodox used to call the White Martyrdom of rejection by society. Their purpose is to break you down, like boot camp, to separate you from your past life, to crack the shell of your complacency and see if the creature dwelling within will survive in a larger world. 

I don't like to think about the furor over the diss any more than Jim likes to reminisce about the chopper crash and his men's deaths.. I ran across references to the White Martyrdom in a book on the Russian Orthodox during the Russian Revolution, during my weeks of limbo, and it was a good thing there was nobody around when I read it because it struck deep and I curled up around the book and let out the pain for a while. The original Greek word we know as martyr means witness, one who sees and tells the truth. 

I was a witness, but I had witnesses on all sides, the University and the police and the media. Jim had the Chopec, who saw him as he was, accepted him, and took him in, and watched as Jim's Sentinel abilities awoke. True initiation requires witnesses, people who saw you before and during and after and know there's been a change. 

For Cory Satterlee, right now, Jim and I are the witnesses. He was cool and insolent as he walked into the box, and now he's starting to sweat, over a container of milk. And for us, now, he's the witness to what happened in that little store, the one who, if he is to pass this gateway, must offer up the truth as a sacrifice. 

* * *

Jim's still pacing, slowly, more Sherlock Holmes putting the details into order than the panther stalking its prey. There's no mistaking his size or his dangerous nature, though. His weapon is in plain sight in his shoulder holster, and he's big and taking up a lot of space in that room, which isn't spacious to begin with. 

Satterlee's not small at 19, but he's thin, all long bony legs and wiry arms. Sitting down, being towered over by Jim, can make anyone feel less powerful than they thought they were. But he's holding his own, not flinching or overly wary as Jim moves past him. I have to give him points for that. 

"How you know about Shiree's baby?" 

"She had it with her when I talked to her. Your sister is a good woman." 

"You better believe it." His chin goes up defiantly and he stares down his nose at Jim, which is hard to do when you're staring at someone taller than you are. 

"Oh, I do believe it, Mr. Satterlee." Jim pauses to nod politely at Satterlee, then resumes pacing, only now he's circling the room instead of crossing back and forth in front of the table. "So you took the milk and the bread and the tuna back home with you. Were your sister and her boyfriend and the baby still there?" 

Satterlee nods. "Yeah. We had breakfast." He tries not to be bothered by Jim crossing behind him, out of his sight. "Shiree and me, we get alone fine." 

But Jim didn't ask this. The movement is starting to shake up Satterlee. 

"Getting along with your family is a good thing," Jim pontificates. "You get along with her boyfriend too?" 

A pause, that both Jim and I notice. "Ali's okay." 

That answer's not so solid. Cory has some serious reservations about Ali. I check my notes; Ali has no record, but a reputation as a street fighter that goes back a decade. He's known to be hard on men but protective toward women, not a bad thing on the streets. 

Jim knows all this. He knows Ali has been with Sheree only six months and probably isn't the baby's father, but has been supporting Sheree and the child with the income he has from whatever source. Nobody in that neighborhood is well off; the successes have roofs over their heads that don't leak, hot water when they want it, and enough food and clothes to get by. 

"So, everything was all right." 

"Yeah. Everything was fine." 

"How long did they stay?" 

"Hour or so, then they had to leave." 

"Why?" 

"The baby wasn't doin' good. Shiree wanted to take him over to the clinic." 

"That's too bad. What was wrong?" Jim looks concerned, the concern not entirely faked. The tough guy loves little kids, and they climb all over him and ruin his hard-ass image whenever he goes down to the park. If he'd married someone more willing to be maternal than Carolyn was, he'd probably have half a dozen already. 

"He was cryin', didn't want his bottle. Acted like he had a stomach-ache." 

"That's scary when they're that little," Jim says, commiserating as if he'd raised a dozen children. 

"Yeah, you're tellin' me. But the doctor at the clinic, she checks him out." Satterlee is more sure of himself now, letting his back relax a bit in the chair, but a trickle of sweat is moving down his left temple. 

Jim's as cool as if he were standing in front of an open freezer. 

"What did the doctor say was wrong?" 

Satterlee doesn't say. He has a choked-up look on his face, and shakes his head. Jim turns and walks out of the room. 

* * *

Chaos. Courage. Isolation. 

Those were the next three things Eliade listed as requirements of initiation. It struck me at the time I read his writing, years ago, that he was going a bit overboard with contradictions. Isolation and witnesses? Isolation and chaos? He was abstracting from hundreds of rituals he'd researched or seen, but the conflicts seemed overwhelming then, and I wondered if his original work in French had been mistranslated. 

I was wrong. I'd been interpreting all of it as external, too much so. I didn't know until I went through it myself. Threshold guardians exist in all initiations; they don't have to be visible to the initiate all the time, and they may instigate the chaos. The external turmoil of the media, the conflicting demands of the University and the Cascade P.D., and of Jim himself, paled beside the chaos that engulfed me from within my own mind and heart. 

Jim told me, not long ago when we were sitting on the couch after a late shift and both too wired to sleep, that beyond his own fears for himself he'd been terrified for me after the press conference, afraid that I would be so unable to cope with what had been thrust at me that I'd kill myself. He said he'd taken to hiding his service revolver and his backup weapon in new places, and Simon had caught him at it. Simon had then asked Rafe and Brown to keep an eye on me, quietly. 

My jaw dropped. I hadn't realized they were doing it, though I did notice Rafe, Brown and Megan seemed to be around me more than usual throughout the whole situation. At the time it had just seemed like a counterbalance to Jim's earlier rejection. Even though Jim had sought me out to say that I was his best partner, it hadn't made up for all the hurt from so many directions. I hadn't thought he'd even noticed my feelings at that point, what with everything else happening. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd been oblivious to everything but his own reaction to a perceived threat. 

I must have looked more stupefied than Jim expected, because he reached across and steadied the beer that was tipping in my hand and ready to spill. "I was stupid, Blair. I didn't realize how hard it was for you when you had that conference " He shook his head in self-disgust. "You know what I saw on that TV screen, like an afterimage? All those microphones aimed at me, like guns, and all those questions that just came at me when I got back from Peru." The lines on his face deepened. "It was like going back into battle again, unarmed." 

I reached over and put an arm around him and we held each other for a long time. 

Jim's isolation had begun with his return from Peru. Being there had awakened his senses, but living alone had sharpened them even as they went into remission for five years, so that what he experienced when they came back was fourfold what he'd had before. 

My time of ritual isolation started with rejection by Jim, then by the University's hierarchy and the police. It was the longest two weeks of my life, with the press conference I called as the high point. Disavowing my work to save Jim's life was the only way I could find to face chaos with even half the courage he uses every day to face the chaos of his senses. I knew what I was doing in stripping myself of the affairs of the world I'd lived in until then -- I knew I couldn't ever go back to the way it had been before. It was as public as Francis of Assisi's taking off his father's clothes in the marketplace, and saying, in front of his family and the entire city, that he had no father but his Father in heaven, as he knelt before the bishop. The bishop raised him, put his own robes on Francis, and brought him into the house. I don't know what that felt like for Francis, but I know how it felt when Simon offered me a place with his detectives when I'd thought I'd lost everything. 

What kind of courage will Cory Satterlee show? Will he be able to stand in the light with the result? Or will he choose to stay in the shadows and hide what he knows? Who is he protecting, as Jim protected the Chopec and as I protected Jim? 

* * *

Jim's back in the box now. He's gone down to the break room for coffee and a donut, conferred with Simon and me and Brown, and listened to Rafe's report. Rafe found three witnesses willing to say that Satterlee walked into the Han-Dee Grocery at five p.m. on Saturday and left after five shots were fired. They're also willing to say that Ali Johnes, Satterlee's sister's boyfriend, and Craig Bacon were with him. 

Cory Satterlee's been left to stew alone for an hour. He's starting to take it seriously, and he probably would like a trip to the restroom about now. He's not going to get one for a little while. If he asks, of course we'll let him go, under guard, and come right back. 

Satterlee made one dumb move at the start; he waived his right to an attorney. He can still call for one, and it looks as if he might, from the expression on his face, but it would take a while longer to find one to act for him and he still isn't going to be able to leave. 

Jim puts a cup of coffee with cream down on the table, and sips one of his own. They're cheap foam cups, no thick plastic or ceramic that could be smashed and used as a weapon. "Thought you might like another cup of coffee." 

"When'm I getting out of here, Detective?" It wasn't quite a whine. 

"When we're done. Not too much longer," Jim said. He sat on the other side of the table, one hip there on the hard surface, infringing just a few inches into whatever psychic territory Satterlee had staked out for himself. "You were saying that the doctor figured out what was wrong with your nephew?" 

"Yeah. Stomach trouble." 

"Was this something that happened before?" Jim's voice is still offhand. 

"I don't know. She doesn't live with me. I don't see them every day." Satterlee is striving to be cool, but coolness is receding from him like the outgoing tide. 

"Why did the baby have stomach trouble, Cory?" It's the first time Jim has used his first name. 

"Bad food." 

Almost a whisper. 

"Bad food. Is that what you said?" 

Satterlee gave the slightest nod of acknowledgment. "Bad food. The milk was bad." 

"The milk you bought for her to give the baby was bad? How did you feel about that?" 

"I was mad, real mad. That's my nephew Jeruice, he's a good li'l guy. I don't like to see him hurting." 

"So what did you do about it?" 

"I went down to tell that asshole who owns the store that I wanted my money back and I wanted a good bottle of milk." 

"Did you go by yourself?" 

"Yes." 

The easy look is gone from Jim's face. "Are you sure?" His eyes are growing bluer, cooler. 

"Yeah, man." 

"Then why do we have witnesses who say they saw you going into the Han-Dee Grocery with two other men that afternoon?" Jim's speeding up the questions, a little less time between one answer and the next question. 

"I ran into 'em on the way. Not my business where they're going," Satterlee countered. 

"Who did you run into? Was it Ali and Craig?" 

"Yeah." 

"Where did you run into them?" 

"Ali was 'bout two blocks away; Craig was goin' out to get cigarettes." 

"Where was Ali going?" 

"He didn't say, just walked along with me." 

"And you were carrying the spoiled milk with you to take back?" The questions are almost rapid-fire now. 

"In a bag. Yeah." He's more sure of himself again. 

"What else did you have with you?" 

"Nothing, man." 

"And when you got to the store, what happened?" 

"I tripped over the crap that was piled by the doorway and fell." 

"And what happened to the milk?" 

"The cap came off and it went all over the place." Satterlee is back in that moment now, and his words are starting to come faster, too. "I get up and tell Old Man Surry his milk's bad, it made Jeruice sick, and I want good milk or my money back. And Old Man Surry, he's telling me he can't tell if the milk's bad or not, now that it's all over the floor, so why should he get me a refund? And I yell at him and tell him he got to do right by Jeruice -- he got to do right -- and he throws up his hands and goes to get another bottle of milk." 

"Where's Ali at this point?" 

"Behind me." Satterlee blinked, and an odd expression comes over his face. "Ali pushed me into that crap," he said slowly. "I thought I fell, but I didn't. I didn't just fall, he pushed me out of the way. Then Craig get in his way, and stand there a minute or two while I'm talking to the old man." 

"So Mr. Surry goes to get you another carton of milk out of the cooler?" 

"Yeah." He's looser, more sure of himself. He can see the man going to the cooler, and so can we. 

"Where's Mrs. Surry when he's doing that?" Jim's voice is softer, though as intense. He's staying with the momentum of Satterlee's unfolding memories. 

"She's unpacking boxes in the next aisle." 

"So Mr. Surry goes to the cooler to get you the milk. What happens next?" 

* * *

Initiation requires a blood sacrifice. Something, someone has to shed blood. 

The initiate isn't always the sacrificial lamb stretched on the altar under the knife's edge. 

Jim's men died in Peru in the crash. 

Simon and Megan were shot by the Iceman, who had learned too much about what disables a Sentinel. This only proved I'd done the right thing, keeping knowledge of Jim's abilities quiet. The fact that I gave up the academic path I'd been walking up to then meant nothing compared to it. 

And Mr. and Mrs. Surry were shot in their grocery store, and died together in the middle of the place they'd worked for forty years. 

* * *

"What happens next, Cory? Mr. Surry's already going to get your milk. Why did you shoot him?" 

"I didn't shoot him, man." Certainty in his voice, and disdain. 

"You pulled out your gun " Jim's just as certain, challenging him. 

"I don't have a gun. I never had one. I'm a knife fighter, man, I don't truck with guns." Cory Satterlee's head comes up and he stares back at Jim. This is a point of pride: he uses a weapon that requires speed, accuracy and skill. He's not someone who just blasts away with a firearm. 

"But you didn't pull your knife, did you?" 

"What for? He already going for what I want." He doesn't want to go where this is leading him, it's in his face that he sees where the questions are heading, but whether he wants it or not he's going anyway. 

"You pulled a gun." 

"No, man, no." 

"You pulled a gun." 

"No." Louder. 

"You pulled a gun." 

"I didn't pull no gun. Ali pulled the gun." 

"Ali pulled the gun." Jim repeats. Blue eyes hold brown eyes in a gaze as steady as the Starship Enterprise's tractor beam. 

"Yeah." Satterlee finally hears what he's said, his shoulders sinking. "Ali pulled the gun, and Craig tried to stop him, but he pushed me down and shot Old Man Surry, and he fell into the cooler. And the old lady come hurrying up, screaming, and he shot her too." 

"Did Ali say anything when he did it?" 

"Somethin' 'bout the old man disrespecting us, giving us bad food." He doesn't want to remember this. He doesn't want to realize he's just rolled over on his sister's boyfriend, the man who's supporting her and Jeruice. 

"And what happened then?" Jim's waiting. There's something more to come. 

"Nothing. We left." 

"Did you get the milk?" 

At this, Satterlee folds. He's done for. The look on his face holds desperation, mixed with pain. 

"No, man. Ali's a messy shooter; no skill. He hit all the rows of milk cartons, and they're leaking and there's milk and blood all over the floor and nothing good left at all." He's got a tear coming down one cheek. "I hate guns, man. Not even one carton of milk for Jeruice." 

Jim looks at me through the glass, and the message is clear. I pick the extension in the observation room and call Simon. 

* * *

Initiation is the one-way door between the old self and the new self, and once you've gone through that door the old self is dead as Jacob Marley's ghost. Whatever happens now, it can't be resuscitated or regained. The only way forward is to look at the tools and the materials you have available and put together for yourself a new life. 

Jim's a Sentinel. He's rejected the chance to go back to ordinary senses, and accepted the gains and limitations of his gifts. He'll never be completely alone again, because he needs his guide, which means he also has to put up with me. (He doesn't complain, especially on Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons, and any other time we get the chance to get out of the clothes and into bed. I have no complaints, either.) Together we're a good team. 

I'm a detective as well as an anthropologist. I got the degree, finally, and I'm able to teach and work with Jim, which is what I wanted. Whether it would have meant as much if it had come to me the way I originally planned is questionable. I'm no longer a globe-trotting academic; I've given up the chance at what others would consider an ordinary life. 

Now I observe people like Cory Satterlee, who may make it after all. He committed no crime here, unless loving a small child enough to want it to have good food is a crime. 

* * *

Cory's crying now, letting it out, no longer concerned that Jim will see him losing face. 

"What's gonna happen now?" he asks Jim, who hands him a couple of tissues and waits while Cory blows his nose. 

"We'll write up what you just told me, and you'll sign it. You may have to testify in court against Ali, unless he cops a plea." Jim's hovering now, but more in concern than in any kind of police attitude. "You going to be able to do that, Cory?" 

Cory nods. "What're we gonna do now over in the neighborhood, man? We don't have no grocery no more. Where're the people gonna get their food?" 

"I don't know," Jim admits. "They'll have to find some place else." 

Cory shakes his head and lowers it into his hands. He rubs his face hard, balls his hands into fists and looks over them at Jim before loosening them again. "And what's gonna happen to Shiree and Jeruice? She'll starve. I don't make enough to support all three of us, and she only works part time, can't get anything else." 

"I don't know," Jim says again. "Do you think you and Shiree should be protected? Will anyone come after you because of Ali?" 

He shakes his head again. "No. Craig tried to stop him too; but he doesn't owe Ali anything. Ali's an outlaw. He's not in a gang any more, and I never was." He blows his nose and looks up at Jim. "How you gonna make sure Shiree doesn't lose her place in all this? Or her job? Or Jeruice? Even if I go live on her couch for a while, it's not gonna work forever." 

"I know," Jim says. He's realistic about it, not blowing smoke. It's going to be very hard for Cory and Shiree for a while. "If you want help, we have contacts, Sandburg and I, and not just the Social Services people. We'll see what we can do." 

Cory studies him for a long minute, and I hold my breath. 

Trust is the very last test. 

Do you grab the rope and depend on someone else to hold the other end steady for you? 

Jim gazes back at him, and I can sense that he's letting some of his barriers fall before this kid. He's no less the tough, capable cop, but he's also letting his face relax a little, showing the smile lines and the few wrinkles that give it character. He's showing he's someone who's been through all this and more, and won't let him down. 

Cory's been let down for years, much as Jim was. I glance down at the file in my lap, noting again the record of loss: parents divorced, father killed in an industrial accident, mother dead in an accidental shooting trying to stop friends from hurting each other, little brother killed by a gang. Working at night at a series of bad jobs to keep food on the table while in high school, pulling long shifts, trying to make things right when he knows they can't ever be as good as what he sees on television. And, with it all, still trying to stay legit, staying out of the drug traffic and the gangs, and respected for it. But that respect comes from people who might be adversaries, not friends; he earned it by being faster with a blade than anyone else on the street, and it hasn't given him friends. The only people Cory has left in his life that care about him are Shiree and Jeruice; everyone else, including everyone in the system, has let him down at one time or another. 

And Cory Satterlee nods slowly. "Okay." 

* * *

Cory needs a better job, a way to make a better life for himself. I'll see what I can do to help him, with my contacts around the city, as will Jim in his own way. It's part of the responsibility that comes with having passed initiation; the witnesses have to help the initiate with his new life. Cory has his high-school diploma, but he's only been able to find a job as a sweeper at a factory. The money's good, the low end of union scale that is better than minimum, but there's no prospect for the future. I'll ask him if he'd like to get into some of the job-training programs that Cascade Community College is sponsoring as part of its community service. If his goals are higher than that, like a degree from Rainier, that may be possible too. He's smart and capable, and willing to work hard, and he's honest. 

Jim will get him through the hearing and trial, if it comes to that, with as much care and support as he can, as much as Cory will accept. He's been there too often; he knows what it is to be faced with questions he doesn't want to answer but must in order to do the right thing. 

I'll stop by tonight to see Sheree Satterlee and make sure she has enough of what she needs to get by for herself and little Jeruice, see if they want any help in dealing with the Social Services people that might come around because of this. I've got a few dollars extra from the last paycheck that I won't miss, and if it keeps the two of them together rather than putting that much-loved child into a foster home, it's the best money I'll spend this month. It's always been hard for a woman raising a child alone, especially when the boyfriends come and go; I've known that all my life. Whether she decides to wait for Ali or not, we'll find a way for her to keep afloat and make her own decisions. 

It's part of what we do, the part that isn't public or obviously heroic. This is what it means to guard and guide the Great City. Perhaps Cory Satterlee will join us here one day, in his own way, helping to take care of the people of his own tribe that is part of our tribe, for all the tribes of the Great City are one. 

* * *


End file.
